Creating direct charges

Direct charges are recommended for Standard accounts. The connected account is responsible for Stripe fees, refunds, and chargebacks. For more information about the different types of Connect charges, see the documentation on choosing an approach.

Get started

If you’re new to Connect, start with a guide to use direct charges to enable other businesses to accept payments directly.

Create a charge

To create a direct charge on the connected account, create a PaymentIntent object and add the Stripe-Account header with a value of the connected account ID:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=card \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d currency="usd" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: {{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}}" \

To learn how to build a payment form, see the documentation on how to Accept a payment.

In Step 3 when initializing Stripe.js library in your client, pass the ID of the connected account to process payments for that account.

// Set the connected Stripe Account to collect payments on behalf of that account
        var stripe = Stripe('<%= @sample_credentials.test_publishable_key %>', {
          stripeAccount: "{{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}}"
        });

Charges created directly on the connected account are reported only on that account; they aren’t shown in your platform’s Dashboard, exports, or other reporting, although you can always retrieve this information with a call to the API.

Collect application fees

With Connect, your platform can take an application fee on direct charges. To assess an application fee on a charge, pass an optional application_fee_amount value as a positive integer:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=card \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d currency="usd" \
  -d application_fee_amount="123" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: {{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}}" \

Note the following limitations:

• The value of application_fee_amount should be positive and lower than the amount of the charge. The application fee collected will be capped at the amount of the charge.
• There are no additional Stripe fees on the application fee itself.
• The currency of application_fee_amount depends upon a few multiple currency factors.

The resulting charge’s balance transaction includes a detailed fee breakdown of both the Stripe and application fees. To provide a better reporting experience, an application fee object is created once the fee is collected. Use the amount property on the application fee object for reporting. You can then access these objects with the Application Fees endpoint.

Earned application fees are added to your available account balance on the same schedule as funds from regular Stripe charges. Application fees are viewable in the Collected Fees section of the Dashboard.

Flow of funds with fees

When you specify an application fee on a charge, the fee amount is transferred to your platform’s Stripe account. When processing a charge directly on the connected account, the charge amount—less the Stripe fees and application fee—is deposited into the connected account.

For example, if a charge of $10 with a $1.23 application fee is made (as in the example above), $1.23 is transferred to your platform account, and $8.18 ($10 - $0.59 - $1.23) is netted in the connected account (assuming standard U.S. Stripe fees).

If you process payments in multiple currencies, you should also read how that is handled in Connect.

Issue refunds

Just as platforms can create charges on connected accounts, they can also create refunds of charges on connected accounts. To refund a charge on a connected account, perform a standard create refund request using your platform’s secret key while authenticated as the connected account.

Application fees are not automatically refunded when issuing a refund. Your platform must explicitly refund the application fee or the connected account—the account on which the charge was created—loses that amount.

You can refund an application fee by passing a refund_application_fee value of true in the refund request:

curl api.stripe.com/v1/refunds \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d charge="{CHARGE_ID}" \
  -d refund_application_fee=true \
  -H "Stripe-Account: {{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}}" \

By default, the entire charge is refunded, but you can create a partial refund by setting an amount value as a positive integer.

If the refund results in the entire charge being refunded, the entire application fee is refunded. Otherwise, a proportional amount of the application fee is refunded.

Alternatively, you can provide a refund_application_fee value of false and refund the application fee separately through the API.

See also